Chapter 28 - 27 : Titans ogres II

Chapter 28: Chapter 27 : Titans ogres II

One of the candidates said in a trembling voice:

"How... how are we supposed to fight that?"

No one answered him.

When one of the young men began repeating quietly, some of the girls moved back towards the carriages.

"We’re already finished... we can’t... someone of higher blood can’t fall like this..."

Even some of the members of the escort party changed expression, their faces stripped bare by despair.

And that was the worst thing the candidates could have seen.

These men had spent long journeys in the Mountains of Death, and had faced the beasts before them many times. If the appearance of the Titan Ogres was enough to make them feel tense, what were the noble children who had spent most of their lives among servants and palaces supposed to feel?

The first Titan Ogre charged.

The ground shook beneath its steps.

One of the escorts raised his rifle and fired.

The bullet struck the beast’s shoulder and left a small wound that trickled blood, but it did not stop for even a moment.

It raised the tree trunk above its head.

The escort tried to get away, but the blow reached him before he could fully clear its range. He raised his rifle instinctively to defend himself, and part of the weapon shattered as his body was flung several meters until it slammed into the side of one of the carriages.

The screams rose.

"The mages! Where’s the mixed-blood scum?!"

"Why aren’t they intervening?!"

"This noble is going to fall here!"

Some of the candidates began moving toward the inside of the carriages instead of staying at their positions.

Charles leaped onto a broken piece of wood and shouted:

"If you scatter now, you’ll die faster! Hold your positions!"

It’s totally understandable why people were afraid when the Titan Ogres arrived.

It was a bit of a challenge for him to conceal his true strength when he was grappling with any of them.

Then he looked toward the noble mages.

They were still in their places.

One of them had not even changed his seated posture.

At that, Noah understood what he needed to understand.

Even the appearance of the Titan Ogres was not enough to make these mages consider the situation out of control.

Noah looked on coldly before he began thinking of backup plans to escape if it came to that.

"We’ll wait and see for now..." Noah muttered quietly before he went on pretending to rest and recover his mana.

As long as these people were capable of ending the battle when necessary, all he had to do was keep up the act until then.

The escort captain shouted:

"Use reinforcement!"

The men’s expressions changed for a moment before they obeyed.

Silva tightened his grip around his rifle, and then Noah felt a strange movement of mana inside the man’s body. It did not come out into the air, and it did not turn into an element as happened with the nobles’ magic. Instead, it stayed inside the man’s body.

The veins over his arms began to show in a faint blue color, and his muscles tensed visibly. The same thing happened with the rest of the escorts, and a light cracking sound rose from the joints of some of them while their breathing grew heavier.

Noah’s eyes widened slightly.

One of the ordinary ogres charged at one of the men and struck him with its arm with force. Before using the technique, a blow like this could have sent him flying, but the escort planted his feet and endured the impact, then raised his rifle and fired straight through the ogre’s mouth.

The beast fell.

Noah focused on what he was seeing.

They were not using mana to create any element.

They were using it on their own bodies.

Their muscles.

Their bones.

And perhaps their organs as well.

He immediately remembered what Robert had told him about the old knights.

They were not Paladins, of course. The old path had been destroyed centuries ago, while the current knights relied on the traces of higher blood within their veins in order to be able to train at all.

But perhaps the nobles had not erased everything.

Perhaps the modern method had kept some parts of the old path even after distorting it.

"Interesting..."

He could not tell exactly how the mana moved inside their bodies, but he could sense it in general, which was sufficient to enable him to draw some conclusions.

At the same time, he noticed that the reinforcement came at a price.

After a short while, the men’s breathing became more laboured, and one of them began to tremble as he reloaded his rifle. A thin line of blood appeared at the corner of Silva’s mouth, which he wiped away with his sleeve before continuing to fight.

Whatever the technique was doing to their bodies, it was not something that could be used endlessly.

One of the Titan Ogres reached Charles’s group.

Two of the candidates cast their spells at it at the same time, but the beast continued its charge despite being hit.

Charles raised his hand and launched an attack at its leg, but he only managed to slow it slightly.

The Titan Ogre raised its club.

Noah extended his finger toward the ground.

The frost spread quickly beneath the beast’s foot, and it was not enough to freeze it, but it made it slip half a step when it tried to attack.

That half step was enough for Charles to get out of the club’s path.

The impact resulted in minor fissures in the soil.

Charles paused momentarily, then directed his gaze towards Noah.

"I owe you one..."

"..."

Charles smiled a little before returning to the fight.

For now, Charles falling could throw a doubled burden onto him several times over, and he did not want any more headaches.

The deep roar came from up in the mountains once again.

The four Titan Ogres moved at the same instant.

This time they did not scatter.